All around the world, August is a time for vacations, travel, and resorts, a time of school breaks, picnics, and swimming. But somehow, in Russia, August has seen more than its fair share of mayhem and disaster over the past hundred years.

This is a short extract from a satirical book published in 1837, from which we learn: what sorts of bribes there are; why it is better to take a bribe during lunch; why gaudy is better than a bullfinch; the language in which one should speak of bribes; and how to avoid punishment for receiving bribes.